Planned on writing a new communitarian law article but the weather has been exceptional here; I've spent every possible moment outside soaking up the rays. Only six weeks until summer solstice so we're getting a lot of daylight... we go from one extreme to the other. I love not having to start a fire when I wake up, so acclimated to the cold that 50 above inside feels warm.

Gertee update: Nordica decided spending a week in gertee was like heliotheraphy because of the skylight. Keep getting great feedback on the new wall and roof covers from men who normally never notice my decorations. Daniel said it makes him feel like he should have a suit and tie on when he comes inside now. Got the 18' tore down yesterday and moved it to the new spot today. My neighbor Ron is adding two layers of plywood to the roof-ring for extra reinforcement, suggested I buy myself a small kit of battery operated saws that he's sure I can handle. Thinks they would make a useful addition to the DIY kit. He brought over his set and they are very light weight tools. He says I already started with the hardest saw to master (my chainsaw) and that these saws will be easy for me to learn on. I did use a small saw for my minis, so I guess it's time for me to learn to cut my own wall slats and make roof-rings now too. Working on a new floor platform idea using big plastic tubes for beams. If it works gertee will leave a very slight imprint on the earth, just an indentation that looks like a crop circle. And this time I laid a pipe for bringing cold air through a hole to the stove.

Globalist philosophy

Environmental Communitarian Law has been practiced in the EU Court for over 50 years. It is the legal philosophy that sustains depopulation programs. The current flu scare is obviously part of the depopulation agenda since so many laws have been passed that justify emergency powers for confiscations, quarantines and forced vaccinations. Cities around the world "practice" procedures for exactly this type of emergency. The flu pandemic wouldn't even have to be real, we'd only need to believe it was. This makes traveling seem very dangerous (and the Atlanta FEMA body bags story seems to tie in very nicely with this).

From our friend Darren in BC:

UNDERSTAND THEIR POSITION AND PHILOSOPHY

“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”- Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme

“A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.”- Paul Ehrlich, Professor of Population Studies

“The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the US. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are.”- Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund

“Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control.”- Professor Maurice King

“We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects. We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of acres of presently settled land.”- David Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!

“Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it.”- Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute

“The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.”- Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation

“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.”- Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University

“Our insatiable drive to rummage deep beneath the surface of the earth is a willful expansionof our dysfunctional civilization into Nature.”- Al Gore, Earth in the Balance

“The big threat to the planet is people: there are too many, doing too well economically and burning too much oil.”– Sir James Lovelock, BBC Interview

“My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with it’s full complement of species, returning throughout the world.”-Dave Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!

“All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes andbehaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.”- Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution

“Mankind is the most dangerous, destructive, selfish and unethical animal on the earth.”- Michael Fox, vice-president of The Humane Society

“Humans on the Earth behave in some ways like a pathogenic micro-organism, or like the cells of a tumor.”- Sir James Lovelock, Healing Gaia

“The Earth has cancer and the cancer is Man.”- Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point

"A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells, the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions."- Prof. Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb

"A reasonable estimate for an industrialized world society at the present North American material standard of living would be 1 billion. At the more frugal European standard of living, 2 to 3 billion would be possible."- United Nations, Global Biodiversity Assessment

“A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.”- Ted Turner, founder of CNN and major UN donor

“… the resultant ideal sustainable population is hence more than 500 million but less than one billion.”- Club of Rome, Goals for Mankind

"One America burdens the earth much more than twenty Bangladeshes. This is a terrible thing to say in order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it's just as bad not to say it."- Jacques Cousteau, UNESCO Courier

“If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.”- Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, patron of the World Wildlife Fund

“I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems.”- John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

“The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing.”- Christopher Manes, Earth First!

"Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing."- David Brower, first Executive Director of the Sierra Club

“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill.”- Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution

“We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination… So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts… Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”- Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports

“Unless we announce disasters no one will listen.”- Sir John Houghton, first chairman of IPCC

“It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.”- Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace

"We've got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy."- Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation

"No matter if the science of global warming is all phony, climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world."-Christine Stewart, fmr Canadian Minister of the Environment

"The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift Global Consciousness to a higher level."- Al Gore, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize

"The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe."- emeritus professor Daniel Botkin

"We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis."- David Rockefeller, Club of Rome executive manager

"Humanity is sitting on a time bomb. If the vast majority of the world's scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send out entire planet's climate system into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced - a catastrophe of our own making."- Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth

"By the end of this century, climate change will reduce the human population to a few breeding pairs surviving near the Arctic."- Sir James Lovelock, Revenge of Gaia

"Climate Change will result in a catastrophic, global seal level rise of seven meters. That's bye-bye most of Bangladesh, Netherlands, Florida and would make London the new Atlantis."- Greenpeace International

"Climate change is real. Not only is it real, it's here, and its effects are giving rise to a frighteningly new global phenomenon - the man-made natural disaster."- Barack Obama, US Presidential Candidate

"We are close to a time when all of humankind will envision a global agenda that encompasses a kind of Global Marshall Plan to address the causes of poverty and suffering and environmental destruction all over the earth."- Al Gore, Earth in the Balance

"In Nature organic growth proceeds according to a Master Plan, a Blueprint. Such a 'master plan' is missing from the process of growth and development of the world system. Now is the time to draw up a master plan for sustainable growth and world development based on global allocation of all resources and a new global economic system. Ten or twenty years from today it will probably be too late."- Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point

"The concept of national sovereignty has been immutable, indeed a sacred principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation."- UN Commission on Global Governance report

"Democracy is not a panacea. It cannot organize everything and it is unaware of its own limits. These facts must be faced squarely. Sacrilegious though this may sound, democracy is no longer well suited for the tasks ahead. The complexity and the technical nature of many of today's problems do not always allow elected representatives to make competent decisions at the right time."- Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution

"In my view, after fifty years of service in the United National system, I perceive the utmost urgency and absolute necessity for proper Earth government. There is no shadow of a doubt that the present political and economic systems are no longer appropriate and will lead to the end of life evolution on this planet. We must therefore absolutely and urgently look for new ways."- Dr. Robert Muller, UN Assistant Secretary General

"Nations are in effect ceding portions of their sovereignty to the international community and beginning to create a new system of international environmental governance as a means of solving otherwise unmanageable crises."- Lester Brown, WorldWatch Institute

"A keen and anxious awareness is evolving to suggest that fundamental changes will have to take place in the world order and its power structures, in the distribution of wealth and income."- Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point

"Adopting a central organizing principle means embarking on an all-out effort to use every policy and program, every law and institution, to halt the destruction of the environment."- Al Gore, Earth in the Balance

"Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced - a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources. This shift will demand that a concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated into individual and collective decision-making at every level."- UN Agenda 21

"The earth is literally our mother, not only because we depend on her for nurture and shelter but even more because the human sepcies has been shaped by her in the womb of evolution. Our salvation depends upon our ability to create a religion of nature."- Rene Dubos, board member Planetary Citizens

Sunday, April 26, 2009

It gets harder every day for me to put any attention toward recent "news" events. My inbox is continually refilled with alerts and forwards from people on the "right", the "left" and sometimes even the communitarian middle. The right is currently flipping out over the Fusionist Kansas DHS report, but most articles and "conservative alerts" have eliminated the most relevant terms and focus all their outrage on Napolitano's resignation and Obama's spokesman's comments; very little (to nothing) is being written about the Fusion program or the COPS who initated it.

The right v left "divide" continues to serve a valuable purpose for the emerging supranational world government. As long as they keep up their pretense of opposites they can skillfully redirect our attentions and guide us into useless actions. There are hundreds of other divides too; not one controversial topic is set up with a simple formula. Each side has as many sub-sides as the topic can handle, and the Zionist arena has more than anyone can handle. As I am committed to continuing my studies and we are enrolled in no formal anticommunitarian studies program, perspectives in comments from readers adds to my overall thoughts on these topics.

Amitai Etzioni is a duel Israeli-US citizen; he wrote that the Israeli government will not allow him to change his duel citizen status. I've tried to keep up with the duel citizenship controversy for this reason. From Peter Myer's elist:

It was interesting however to read the Forward's take, and I found it went some way to confirming my view. This is a story that enables the Zionist Lobby to spin the 'Israeli spying in the USA' issue - which is out there already in the public domain - the way they want to spin it.

There’s been plenty of coverage of the Jane Harman wiretap ‘scandal’, not only on the blogosphere but also in the mainstream media.

That fact alone makes me a little suspicious. Here’s an extract from the (Murdoch-owned) Times of London: Wiretap scandal of leading Democrat ‘who lobbied for Israeli spies’:

A prominent Democratic Congresswoman was embroiled last night in a growing scandal involving government wiretaps and her relationship with two alleged Israeli spies.

Jane Harman, a California Democrat with long involvement in US intelligence matters, was allegedly recorded by a Bush administration wiretap promising an Israeli agent that she would intervene on behalf of two pro-Israel lobbyists charged in the US with spying.

In return for pledging to use her influence to get the charges against the two men reduced, Ms Harman, a pro-Israeli hawk, was allegedly told by the unidentified agent that he would put pressure on senior Democrats to get her appointed to a top Congressional intelligence post.

Allegations that Ms Harman had inappropriately used her influence to aid the two employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the powerful Israeli lobby group, surfaced in 2006. What is new is the claim that she had been caught on a National Security Agency (NSA) wiretap discussing a “quid pro quo” deal on the case.

The alleged wiretap, reported by the political journal Congressional Quarterly, occurred because the NSA had been targeting telephone calls made by the Israeli agent during an investigation of AIPAC. In 2006 it was reported that Ms Harman was the subject of an FBI investigation over her involvement with the hawkish Israeli lobby group…

That’s about as far down an article as most readers get, so I’ll stop there…

Incredible news, unbelievable liars

Remember, this is from a News Ltd source. In the USA, other major media organizations with a strong Zionist bias have also run the story.

I’d say it’s froth and doubt it will lead anyhere, or that there’ll be any serious punishment of notorious Israel-firster Jane Harman. Indeed, I suspect she’ll end up publicly ‘vindicated’.

The real goal of this ‘exposé’ is probably to mislead people into believing there is aggressive monitoring of potential Israeli agents in Congress and elsewhere. It helps create the impression that the US intelligence agencies work hard to protect American interests - and that the US body politic is well defended from Israeli influence.

The NSA: has it really saved America from Zionist penetration?

I don’t buy it. The US Congress is stuffed with pro-Israel stooges. If the NSA was seriously monitoring for pro-Israel wheeling and dealing – and these stories were getting through to the public through via leaks like this – we’d have a dozen similar stories each day.

Beware the self-appointed Masters of Discourse! Even their ‘exposes’ and ‘revelations’ may be acts of deception.

That’s not to say, of course, that everyone in Washington is an Israeli stooge. There certainly are centres of opposition to the blatant betrayal of American interests to a foreign power. President Obama’s own personal position is far from clear.

But to imagine that this case is the most serious recent instance of the betrayal of American interests to Israel is to live in fantasyland, which is precisely where the western mass media likes to keep us.

Harman recently claimed to the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet that “Islamic militants are suspected of using Second Life, the Internet virtual world, to hunt for recruits and mimic real life terrorism”.

Perhaps she’s fears a militant might swoop out of her flatscreen one day and steal her wig?

I for one would be keen to pull it off, as soon as the technology is sufficiently advanced - and if I ever encounter the war-mongering bitch in cyberspace, I’ll set my virtual dog on her. __

POSTSCRIPT: Mondoweiss says Ms Harman is Jewish. I didn’t realize that detail had been left out of most mainstream media reports, but Phil Weiss claims it was,

Some fascinating comments follow his article. Here’s one that caught my eye:

I begin to feel that the only answer is to play things safe and bar Jews from public office.

As a Jew, that wouldn’t trouble me in the least. We’ll lose the wise council of Joe Leiberman, Douglas Feith, Elliot Abrams. Nothing to lose sleep over, in my view.

That will allow smart Jews to continue their meteoric rise in physics and cosmology, literature, etc and keep Jewish riff raff from further perverting our system.

I’m kidding.

But not completely.

It would indeed be annoying to be a first-class astrophysicist, jazz musician or whatever - and feel tarred with the same brush as criminal maniacs.

On the other hand, we shouldn’t forget that most of the Zionist stooges who pack the Parliaments of the western world aren’t Jewish. They’re non-Jews, who go along to get along.

Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), i.e. to the control of congressional oversight over the intelligence community and its activities. That position is by any measure an extremely sensitive one in our national security apparatus. The attempted placement of someone seen by a foreign country Israel as an agent of influence in that position is -- or should be -- a big story. So is the Obama Administration's apparent unwillingness to allow this or to appoint Ms. Harman to a position in the intelligence community, despite the well-documented effort she and the lobby made to advance her candidacy. ...

The Harman-Pelosi story, reported by Stein, also seems to help explain why the HPSCI and its Senate counterpart -- as well as Pelosi -- were so responsive to the campaign the Likud-Lieberman lobby waged against Chas Freeman for the National Intelligence Council. In that case, the lobby vetoed an appointment to the intelligence community. In Harman's case, albeit ultimately unsuccessfully, it attempted to advance one. ...

Daniel Schorr is a commentator on NPR's Saturday morning radio show. He has esteem in the liberal community. Per his autobiography, his mother was devoted to the Zionist cause, and that familial bias shows through in his work. This morning, Scott Simon asked him about the Harman case and Schorr began by saying that Harman is a close friend of his, before getting the case wrong in a couple particulars. It didn't happen as Harman was trying to get the chairmanship of House Intelligence; it was fully a year earlier, as she was battling to keep her status as "ranking member" of the committee. It didn't involve an "investigation" of Israeli lobbyists, as Schorr said; the lobbyists had been indicted long before. Schorr concluded that the matter is "something of a brouhaha." Brouhaha, now being replaced by kerfuffle in journalistic lingo, means People getting into a tizzy about something silly.

This takes me back to Jewish identity. Harman is a liberal hawk, virtually a neocon on Middle East matters. She pushed the disastrous Iraq war. Schorr is a liberal, and I'm sure hawkish. What worldview do these two people share? How much does Israel figure in it? What is its religious basis? And how important is antisemitism to them? What political crimes does this worldview overlook? And what should young liberals make of these values?

P.S. Both Scott Simon and Chris Matthews have called the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, "the American Israel Political Action Committee." But AIPAC is not a PAC. It is a devoted lobbying group, but it doesn't collect money to give to candidates. It takes stands on issues, and its members can do as they please.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Humanist is one of those words that come up frequently enough in my studies that it was on my list of things to study for years. I probably saw it the way most people see communitarianism. But now, just reading through their manifesto, I can see how I (like many Americans) was heavily influenced in my pre-ACL days by this belief.

I've since learned of its use and purpose through my study of the UN's definition of Human Rights http://www.iheu.org/humanrights, and it's an identifiable flag word to me already.

I've never read the Humanist Manifesto before today, but I was heavily exposed to this ideology in AA and within the recovery community back in the 1990s. Interesting to see exactly how revived Lakota Ceremonial Pipes were brought into the Humanistic synthesis. Humanism looks like a synthesis created by expert communitarian balancing, even though there are papers out there claiming communitarianism exists in conflict with humanitarian principles. Not sure I want to spend any time studying this conflict, but if I choose to get to the heart of this whole global humanitarian peace and justice aspect I will have to.

Many of the original signers of the 1933 Manifesto were Unitarians, another theory/religion I've heard referred to most of my life but really know nothing about. Closely associated with civil rights activism, the ACLU (formed to protect Emma Goldman's Fabian activism) and the Quakers,

Answers.com also explains how sustainability ties to the Earth Charter:

"The Earth Charter sets out to establish values and direction in this way: "We must join together to bring forth a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace. Towards this end, it is imperative that we, the peoples of Earth, declare our responsibility to one another, to the greater community of life, and to future generations."

The Society of Humanistic Judaism includes community service as one of its core principles:

"We believe that it is human beings who have the responsibility for solving human problems. We are committed, in the enduring Jewish tradition of support for social action and social progress, to community service and actions for social justice. We each take responsibility for our own behavior, and all of us take collective responsibility for the state of our world." http://www.shj.org/

I was fired by the University of Ottawa on March 31, 2009. I was fired under the false pretext of having arbitrarily assigned high grades in one course in the winter 2008 semester. All relevant documents, media report links, letters of support, petitions, etc., have been made public at rancourt.academicfreedom.ca.

In order to fire me the university had to dispense with due process. In the words of the professors’ union’s lawyer, my dismissal was “both a denial of substantive and procedural rights [...] and a contravention of the basic principles of natural justice.”

Until my firing I was for the whole of my 23 year career, a professor of physics at the University of Ottawa. I was tenured and had occupied the highest academic rank of Full Professor since 1997. I am recognized as an expert in my profession and have taught over 2000 students.

Throughout my tenure, my overriding goal has been to give my students the highest quality of education, affording them the best possible means of learning and understanding a sometimes difficult and daunting subject. To achieve this I have researched pedagogy, conferred with professional physics education researchers, and implemented many new teaching techniques. I have developed several unique and very popular undergraduate and graduate courses, including the Physics and the Environment (Physique et environnement) course, the Science in Society course, and a graduate interdisciplinary course in measurement and characterization methods in science. The Science in Society elective course had to be given in the largest auditorium on campus to accommodate the registered and community participants. The Physics and the Environment required course was considered one of the most motivating courses in the Environmental Studies (ES) program: The executive members of the ES Student Association have referred to me as a “phenomenal teacher” and to the course as “extremely enriching … individualized … empower[ing]” and as “creat[ing] a positive learning environment where inspired students gained confidence and courage” (Letter to the dean of science dated March 15, 2007).

I have paired this teaching profile with a strong research effort, receiving throughout my entire career some of the largest research grants in the Faculty of Science. I have one of the highest scientific impact factors (h-index) in the entire Faculty, with an h-index of 25. To put this in perspective, my present scientific impact factor is more than twice that of the dean of the Faculty of Science, 40% higher than that of the present chairman of the physics department, 80% higher than that of the present chairman of chemistry, and more than twice that of the previous chairman of physics. In 2008, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) reviewed my research and renewed my grant through 2013. Such research success had been expected, because I started my university career under the prestigious NSERC University Research Fellow program, following a national competition among newly sponsored university professors. In 2001, after I obtained the largest NSERC Strategic Project Grant ever obtained in the Faculty of Science, to study boreal forest lakes for five years, the university put out full-page-width advertisements in the Globe and Mail, The Ottawa Citizen, Le Droit, and Silicon Valley North featuring me and my research group and entitled “Can you recognize Canada’s university of the 21st century? Denis Rancourt, LSSE group” (LSSE = Lake Sediment Structure and Evolution). I have supervised more than 80 junior research terms or degrees at all levels from post-doctoral fellow to graduate students to NSERC undergraduate researchers. I have been an invited plenary, keynote, or special session speaker at major conferences nearly 40 times, an exceptional number by Faculty of Science standards. To put this in perspective, many past and present science department chairs and deans have never been a plenary or keynote speaker at an international scientific conference.

No reasonable person, and in fact so far not a single person or organization who has examined the background of my dismissal, lends any credibility to the university’s claim that my grading in one course, one year ago, is the real reason for its recent actions. How can a disagreement about grading possibly justify ordering the university police to remove a tenured professor from campus, banning him from campus, assigning his graduate students to other faculty, firing his postdoctoral research fellow, and summarily firing him without due process?

The university’s pretext for firing me is particularly ironic given its Vision 2010 strategic plan, which states that the university will “Support and recognize initiatives designed to implement a range of new and diversified strategies for learning and evaluation.”

The lack of due process in the university’s recent actions is also alarming and is a threat to the principle of tenure. The dean simply asserted that my grading was not part of my teaching method and thereby circumvented a formal evaluation of my teaching without my ever being heard by a committee of my peers, as foreseen by the due process rules in place.

In recent years, I have become an advocate of various reforms, all with the purpose of making the University of Ottawa a stronger and better institution. I have expressed concerns about university policy on such issues as the Student Code of Conduct and Deaf-community access to campus events. I have also been an outspoken advocate and practitioner of greater democracy in the institution in:

the choice of pedagogical methodthe development of the syllabusthe choice of community service offeringsthe right to challenge established practicethe selection of course contentand I have communicated my views on a variety of broad societal issues, including:environmental concernsprofessional ethicsthe Palestine-Israel conflictthe influences of lobby groups and the media in our representative democracy

The university’s response to the concerns that I have raised has been to attempt to silence me through a series of disciplinary actions based on various false pretexts. All of these actions have either been dismissed, abandoned by the university, rejected by an arbitrator, or are heading to arbitration for likely rejection. The latest pretext used by the university, the grading issue, will not be upheld, for obvious reasons already determined by a previous arbitration award. The June 2008 decision of arbitrator Michel G. Picher established that all the pedagogical initiatives that I implemented in 2005, including non-conventional grading as an integral part of the teaching method, were under the purview of a professor’s academic freedom[1].

It appears that among the real reasons for the university’s attempts to discipline me since September 2005 and for its recent most harsh actions against me under President Allan Rock’s mandate might be the administration’s opposition to my political views about the Palestine-Israel conflict, which, starting in 2005, I have expressed in articles, on radio, in my blog postings, at public venues, and in my classes. In September 2005 the dean cancelled my Physics and the Environment course following a complaint (regarding an email comment about Zionism), channelled through the university’s Canadian Studies Institute director Pierre Anctil to the VP-Academic. A complaint against an invited speaker in the course, Professor Michel Chossudovsky - who spoke about Middle East geopolitics, from the Jewish Student Association then gave rise to a sustained but failed attempt to discipline me. In 2006 I invited two Canadian-Palestinian speakers to address the class in my Science in Society course. This was followed by a damning January-2007 editorial in The Ottawa Citizen and I was subsequently removed from teaching all the first-year courses that I had developed. The Ottawa Citizen is a CanWest newspaper and its director is a member of the university’s Board of Governors.[2] CanWest Global Communications Corporation is a staunch advocate and supporter of Israeli policy. In 2007 I criticized the university’s official position on the academic boycott of Israel on my UofOWatch.blogspot.com blog. The repression against me intensified when new university president Allan Rock, a staunch supporter of Israeli policy,[3] arrived on the scene in July 2008. I was disciplined for the UofOWatch blog with an unpaid suspension in September 2008, by a decision of the Executive Committee of the Board of Governors (EBOG). The latter suspension was followed by many more severe actions against me (see below) and is being used by the university as an argument in my dismissal.

The university became markedly more aggressive in its attacks against me after the arrival of Allan Rock in July 2008. Whereas, previous disciplines that started in 2005 were limited to letters of reprimand and of allegation (all withdrawn or overturned), the arrival of former federal politician and proven supporter of Israeli policy Allan Rock coincided with:

my removal from all teachinga one-day suspension without pay for my blog critical of the university,an unannounced lockout from my laboratory actuated under false pretext,dismantling of my laboratory,my removal from my graduate students,reprisals and intimidations against my graduate students,university-imposed unilateral deregistration of my undergraduate research student,an unannounced firing of my research associate of 12 years,my suspension from all my duties,my physical barring from campus, including from my weekly campus radio show,a lockout from my office,my police arrest under a false claim of trespassing while hosting my regular weekly Cinema Academica event,public university statements defaming me, andmy dismissal - allegedly for having assigned twenty three A+s in acombined fourth-year and graduate physics course.

The March 31st university decision to dismiss me was itself tainted with Israel-aligned political influence. The decision was made by the Executive Committee of the Board of Governors (EBOG) with members Allan Rock and Ruth Freiman present. I expressed my concern as follows, in my March 31st supplementary brief that the university refused to receive:

START of quote from supplementary brief:

“ETHICAL CONDUCT OF EBOG

From the “Code of Ethical Conduct and Responisbilities of Members of the BOG of the University of Ottawa”:

2(b) “undue influence: a Member has a private or personal interest sufficient to impair, influence, or appear to influence, the objective exercise of his or her official duties as a Member of the BOG.”

5 Note: Members are required to declare and disclose potential conflicts of interest. “A Member who has declared a conflict of interest shall absent himself or herself during a discussion and vote in connection with the conflict. ...”

9 Responsibilities of Members:

(c) “be independent and impartial”

(d) “not be influenced by self-interest, outside pressure, political considerations or fear of criticism.”

(e) “not allow past or existing financial, business, professional, family or social relationships orresponsibilities to influence his or her conduct or judgement”

Ruth Freiman is the wife of A.J. Freiman, grandson of A.J. Freiman, the founding leader of the Zionist Organization of Canada. Ms Freiman and her family have had a long-standing close relationship with the pro-Israel community in Ottawa and Canada. Ms. Freiman is herself a member of the Board of Directors of the Hillel Academy, whose “core values” include “appreciating the centrality of the State of Israel to Jewish identity” and whose programmes are intended to instil a “connection to Israel.”

My criticism of Israel has been and remains an issue in disciplinary proceedings before the EBOG [...]. According to the “Code” Ms. Freiman has been obliged to declare her personal and family relationships to pro-Israel organizations, which she has not done (see minutes of the September 11, 2008, EBOG meeting, …). Moreover, given these relationships, she has been obliged to recuse herself from proceedings against me. Whether or not her relationships have or will influence her actions, they certainly constitute “undue influence” insofar as they “appear to influence” her conduct, and her continued participation in these proceedings is thus expressly prohibited by the “Code.” [...]

In addition, A.J. Freiman was instrumental in setting up the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Canadian Jewish Studies with Pierre Anctil and Seymour Mayne; Pierre Anctil played a role in my discipline case and past arbitration related to the dean’s cancellation of a 2005 course [...]“

END of quote from supplementary brief

The facts indicate that my dismissal has little to do with grading in one course and is blatantlypolitical. Such repression violates the most fundamental principles underlying academia — academic freedom, professional independence and responsibility, and due process — and is a threat to the integrity of all universities.

It also appears that the university’s true objective, and a direct consequence of its actions, in first suspending me and then firing me for motives based in bad faith, is to end not only my employment, but also my career, thereby causing me considerable personal losses in addition to dissolution of my research group.

I call on all students, academics, workers, and concerned citizens to protest the University of Ottawa’s political firing of me. Letters and petitions are being posted at here. These public protests will have an impact in the campaign to reinstate me.

[My support committee, the Committee for the Defense of Education, can be contacted at: claude.cde[at]gmail.com . The Chair of the committee is psychology professor Claude Lamontagne.]

Endnotes:

1. ^ Regarding academic freedom in Canada, consider the benchmark Statement of Institutional Purpose (University of Toronto): “Within the unique university context, the most crucial of all human rights are the rights of freedom of speech, academic freedom and freedom of research. And we affirm that these rights are meaningless unless they entail the right to raise deeply disturbing questions and provocative challenges to the cherished beliefs of society at large and of the university itself. It is this human right to radical, critical teaching and research with which the University has a duty above all to be concerned; for there is no one else, no other institution and no other office, in our modern liberal democracy, which is the custodian of this most precious and vulnerable right of the liberated human spirit.”2. ^ The March 31, 2008, issue of La Rotonde reported that The Ottawa Citizen and the University of Ottawa had entered into a contract agreement whereby the university named a campus space the “Ottawa Citizen Terrace” (inaugurated in May 2006) in exchange for 1 million dollars in free advertising over five years and “editorial support.” A second negative editorial against me was published in The Ottawa Citizen on April 7, 2009, after my dismissal.3. ^ Allan Rock’s ardent support for Israeli policy is evidenced both in his political career and in his actions on campus as president at the University of Ottawa: In 2004, under Martin’s Liberal government and as Canada’s Ambassador to the UN, Allan Rock changed Canada’s longstanding foreign policy on Israel from abstaining on human rights resolutions for Palestine to being one of the few countries in the World that vote with the US and Israel against UN human rights resolutions for Palestine. In July 2008 the media reported that Allan Rock participated in a trip to Israel “partly financed by the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA)”, along with five other Canadian university presidents. The media reported that Mr. Rock’s visit “yielded immediate results” as “the University of Ottawa agreed to launch an exchange program in law.” After a few months in office, President Allan Rock announced his plan in October 2008 for the University of Ottawa. This plan included what he calls putting “= Canada’s University in the service of the World”. In explaining it to students on October 24, 2008, he talked about exchange programs. When one student asked if Palestinian students would be allowed to participate in the exchange programs with Israel, Mr. Rock stated that he could not answer that. In the fall of 2008, the University of Ottawa chapter of the independent student-run Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG) took a principled stand in line with its mission statement and refused to sponsor a Hillel event due to that organization’s stated unqualified support for Israeli policy. Allan Rock responded by pressuring the student union (SFUO) president to write a letter condemning OPIRG. A letter from the SFUO president delineated the administrative relationships between the SFUO and OPIRG and this letter was made public by Allan Rock on his president’s “Rock Talk” blog. Allan Rock also publicly stated that he would look for an “administrative” mechanism to deny OPIRG student-levy funding (which has been approved by a student referendum). In 2009 the Rock administration banned a student poster announcing Israeli Apartheid Week - a move widely criticized in some media such as the CBC and in the student media. This type of interventions by a president of the University of Ottawa in the affairs of student groups and associations was unprecedented. It is consistent with the increased political influences in recent years from pro-Israel-policy groups on Canadian campuses - documented in the media, such as in this February 18, 2009, CBC-Ottawa radio report.

China's State Reserves Bureau (SRB) has instead been buying copper and other industrial metals over recent months on a scale that appears to go beyond the usual rebuilding of stocks for commercial reasons.

Nobu Su, head of Taiwan's TMT group, which ships commodities to China, said Beijing is trying to extricate itself from dollar dependency as fast as it can.

"China has woken up. The West is a black hole with all this money being printed. The Chinese are buying raw materials because it is a much better way to use their $1.9 trillion of reserves. They get ten times the impact, and can cover their infrastructure for 50 years."

"The next industrial revolution is going to be led by hybrid cars, and that needs copper. You can see the subtle way that China is moving into 30 or 40 countries with resources," he said.

The SRB has also been accumulating aluminium, zinc, nickel, and rarer metals such as titanium, indium (thin-film technology), rhodium (catalytic converters) and praseodymium (glass).

While it makes sense for China to take advantage of last year's commodity crash to restock cheaply, there is clearly more behind the move. "They are definitely buying metals to diversify out of US Treasuries and dollar holdings," said Jim Lennon, head of commodities at Macquarie Bank.

John Reade, metals chief at UBS, said Beijing may have a made strategic decision to stockpile metal as an alternative to foreign bonds. "We're very surprised by Chinese demand. They are buying much more copper than they will need this year. If this is strategic, there may be no effective limit on the purchases as China's pockets are deep."

Zhou Xiaochuan, the central bank governor, piqued the interest of metal buffs last month by calling for a world currency modelled on the "Bancor", floated by John Maynard Keynes at Bretton Woods in 1944.

The Bancor was to be anchored on 30 commodities - a broader base than the Gold Standard, which had caused so much grief in the 1930s. Mr Zhou said such a currency would prevent the sort of "credit-based" excess that has brought the global finance to its knees.

If his thoughts reflect Communist Party thinking, it would explain the bizarre moves in commodity markets over recent weeks. Copper prices have surged 49pc this year to $4,925 a tonne despite estimates by the CRU copper group that world demand will fall 15pc to 20pc this year as construction wilts.

Analysts say "short covering" by funds betting on price falls has played a role. But the jump is largely due to Chinese imports, which reached a record 329,000 tonnes in February, and a further 375,000 tonnes in March. Chinese industrial demand cannot explain this. China has been badly hit by global recession. Its exports - almost half GDP - fell 17pc in March.

While Beijing's fiscal stimulus package and credit expansion has helped lift demand, China faces a property downturn of its own. One government adviser warned this week that house prices could fall 50pc.

One thing is clear: Beijing suspects that the US Federal Reserve is engineering a covert default on America's debt by printing money. Premier Wen Jiabao issued a blunt warning last month that China was tiring of US bonds. "We have lent a huge amount of money to the US, so of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets," he said.

The beauty of recycling China's surplus into metals instead of US bonds is that it kills so many birds with one stone: it stops the yuan rising, without provoking complaints of currency manipulation by Washington; metals are easily stored in warehouses, unlike oil; the holdings are likely to rise in value over time since the earth's crust is gradually depleting its accessible ores. Above all, such a policy safeguards China's industrial revolution, while the West may one day face a supply crisis.

Beijing may yet buy gold as well, although it has not done so yet. The gold share of reserves has fallen to 1pc, far below the historic norm in Asia. But if a metal-based currency ever emerges to end the reign of fiat paper, it is just as likely to be a "Copper Standard" as a "Gold Standard".

(2) China Copper move may secure Cu supply but jeopardise US recovery

From: John Craig Date: 17.04.2009 02:55 AM

A recent article by Ambrose Evans-Prichard seems VERY significant (ie A 'Copper Standard' for the world's currency system?)

Firstly it may mean that China expects, and is moving to try to ensure, that the global financial crisis will result in a general breakdown in the global market economy. China may be ensuring access to the resources needed to manufacture (say) hybrid cars as Evan's Prichard suggested - but, if a run on US Treasuries prevents the US government from funding its stimulus / bank rescue packages and budget deficits which was already a risk, then there is going to be no real market demand for whatever China intends to manufacture because there will be no economic recovery elsewhere for years.

Secondly it may mean that China has made a huge blunder which will be written up in history books as one of the causes of the coming Great Depression - because its commercial desire for profit has caused it to ignore macroeconomic policy imperatives.

In either event it is likely that the whole economic and geopolitical game is going to be changed.

Summer 2009: The international monetary system’s breakdown is underway

The next stage of the crisis will result from a Chinese dream. Indeed, what on earth can China be dreaming of, caught – if we listen to Washington – in the "dollar trap" of its 1,400-billion worth of USD-denominated debt? If we believe US leaders and their scores of media experts, China is only dreaming of remaining a prisoner, and even of intensifying the severity of its prison conditions by buying always more US T-Bonds and Dollars.

The next stage of the crisis will result from a Chinese dream. Indeed, what on earth can China be dreaming of, caught – if we listen to Washington – in the "dollar trap" of its 1,400-billion worth of USD-denominated debt (1)? If we believe US leaders and their scores of media experts, China is only dreaming of remaining a prisoner, and even of intensifying the severity of its prison conditions by buying always more US T-Bonds and Dollars (2).

In fact, everyone knows what prisoners dream of? They dream of escaping of course, of getting out of prison. LEAP/E2020 has therefore no doubt that Beijing is now (3) constantly striving to find the means of disposing of, as early as possible, the mountain of « toxic » assets which US Treasuries and Dollars have become, keeping the wealth of 1,300 billion Chinese citizens (4) prisoner. In this issue of the GEAB (N°34), our team describes the "tunnels and galleries" Beijing has secretively begun to dig in the global financial and economic system in order to escape the « dollar trap » by the end of summer 2009. Once the US has defaulted on its debt, it will be time for the « everyman for himself » rule to prevail in the international system, in line with the final statement of the London G20 Summit which reads as a « chronicle of a geopolitical dislocation », as explained by LEAP/E2020 in this issue of the Global Europe Anticipation Bulletin.

Quarterly Chinese foreign exchange reserves growth - Source: People’s Bank of China / New York Times, 04/2009Behind London’s « fools’ game », where everyone pretended to believe that an event of « historical » international co-operation (5) took place, the G20 summit in fact revealed major divisions. The Americans and British (followed by a compliant Japan) desperately tried to preserve their capacity to maintain control over the global financial system, freezing or diluting any significant reform granting more power to the other players, but in fact no longer powerful enough to enforce their aims. The Chinese, Russians, Indians, Brazilians,… strove to change the balance of the international monetary and financial system in their favour, but were unable (or maybe, deep down, unwilling (6)) to impose their reforms. The Europeans (the EU without the United Kingdom) proved incapable of making up their minds between the only two options available: duplicating US and UK policies and sinking along with them, or questioning the very roots of the current monetary and financial system in partnership with the Chinese, the Russians, the Indians and the Brazilians. Today the Europeans have avoided following Washington and London in their endless reproduction of failed past policies (7), but they do not yet dare to prepare for the future.

The ongoing collapse of world trade growth cannot be explained by past relationships – Quarterly growth rates annualized - Source: OECD, March 2009The Europeans can be held accountable if, in the remaining small window of opportunity (less than 6 months now), they fail to undertake the necessary steps to avoid a 10 year-long tragic crisis (8). Indeed they have the technical know-how that can help to create an international currency based on a basket of the world’s most important currencies, and they know which political approach is required to best combine the various strategic interests of a group of countries whose currencies would comprise the new international reserve currency. Unfortunately, EU leaders (namely Eurozone ones) clearly seem unable to face their responsibilities today, as if they preferred to let the Western system break down (though claiming the contrary) rather than fight to turn it into a bridge leading to a new global system. It may be a choice (LEAP/E2020 does not believe so); it may also be the result of the pusillanimity of EU leaders selected on the basis of their docility (vis-à-vis Washington and major European financial and economic players). In any event, this neutrality is dangerous for the world because it prevents the launch of an effective process to avoid a decade-long tragic crisis to unwind (9).

In this issue of the GEAB, our researchers anticipate the different forms a US default will take at the end of summer 2009, a US default which can no longer be concealed concealable from this April (most taxes are collected in April in the US) onward (10). The perspective of a US default this summer is becoming clearer as public debt is now completely out of control with skyrocketing expenses (+41%) and collapsing tax revenues (-28%), as LEAP/E2020 anticipated more than a year ago. In March 2009 alone, the federal deficit has nearly reached USD 200-billion (way above the most pessimistic forecasts), i.e. a little less than half of the deficit recorded for the entire year 2008 (a record high year) (11). The same trend can be observed at every level of the country’s public organisation: federal state, federated states (12), counties, towns (13), everywhere tax revenues are vanishing, suffocating the whole country with spiraling debts that no one can control anymore (not even Washington).

US tax receipts on corporate income (1930 – 2009) - Sources: US Department of Commerce / Saint Louis Federal Reserve (Q2-Q3 2009 projection by EconomicEdge)In this issue of the GEAB (N°34), our researchers focus on how to explain the « mystery of gold price ». Indeed, our seekers (of information, not gold) identified a number of interesting leads to understand why (14) the price of gold has been fluctuating around the same level for months when the number of gold buyers is constantly increasing and demand for coins and bars far exceeds available supply in many countries.

Finally, our team gives recommendations on how to prepare for the crisis in the coming months, with particular regard to savings and life-insurance.

(2) Most of the time, the same « experts » predicted that global economy would benefit from banking deregulation, that the Internet economy was opening up an era of endless growth, that US deficits were a sign of strength, that US house prices would always go up, and that taking on debt was the modern way to get rich.

(3) The message on the necessity to switch international reserve currency, sent out by Beijing to the world – to US authorities in particular –, on the eve of London’s G20 Summit, was not intended to merely test the waters nor was it some vague attempt with no hope of success. The Chinese leaders had no illusion on the chances for this topic to be actually addressed in the G20 Summit, but they wanted it to be discussed in the backrooms, because they wanted to send an unofficial signal to all the players of the international monetary system: in Beijing’s mind, the Dollar system is over! If no one wishes to prepare for a common alternative system, the alternative system will be built some other way, knowing that the actions the Chinese are currently taking corroborate this intention. For instance, precisely these days (random political schedule is rare in Beijing) a book is being published, entitled « Unhappy China », arguing that Chinese leaders should stand up and impose their choices on the international arena. Source: ChinaDailyBBS, 03/27/2009

A criminal named Cyrus Schofield (not Vance) wrote an interpretation of the Bible that promotes Israel and militant Zionism. The Oxford University Press published it in 1907, and continues to add interpretations that include a warning from God that any nation that does not protect Israel will be judged harshly by God. This is the Bible used by the fundamentalists (like Bush II and Sarah Palin) who believe in and hope for Armageddon. Now I think I understand why so many Christians call me anti-Semitic, and it explains a lot about what happened at Constance Cumbey's blog. The Christian Zionists call me anti Semitic, the "intellectuals" call me a conspiracy theorist, and I'm "pathological" if I defend myself against any of them.

On a related note, here's David over at Hegel's Hotel using his superior Hegelian miseducation to show how many different ways he can insult me. Some of his names for me are pretty funny really, besides all the normal slander (see above), I'm labled everything from "trash talking" to a religious fanatic. He admits he knows nothing about communitarianism but thinks anti communitarianism and communitarianism are basically the same thing! http://hegelshotel-mostrecentpapers.blogspot.com/2009/03/hegels-hotel-dgb-philosophy-is-not.html

Monday, April 13, 2009

Woke up to a bunch of emails about Talmudic Law and references to an article of mine at Rense. I was like, huh? So I go check it out and sure enough, I can see that it's definitely my writing but I had to go look on my ACL: Talmudic Law page to see if that's where it had come from. And it did. My first reaction was to ask Rense to pull it, but it's already shown up on forums. I wrote a note that will be added to the piece, explaining it in the context it was written.

While I appreciate the reception my work gets from people, and I've always encouraged them to reprint and distribute everything at the ACL, I wasn't expecting this kind of distribution. I have a very different writing style when I plan to send a piece out to the "magazines" than when I blog or race through a topic page at the ACL. http://www.rense.com/general85/dere.htm

I am working on a new article about Community Oriented Policing, a shorter version this time for the general public. I have a whole new angle to pursue now too, thanks to Professor Kam C. (Yin?) Wong who wrote and asked me to publish his "State Police as Social Resources Theory." Professor Wong is the Chair of the Dept of Criminal Justice at Xavier University. http://works.bepress.com/kam_wong/ (His books on criminal Justice at Amazon)

Wong wrote me in response to my "Join the Quiet Revolution" article (that I did submit to online magazines last month). We are now engaged in an email discussion of his radical new policing theory, and I wonder if this exchange doesn't belong on my resume alongside my other academic recognition. I got so few responses to my Quiet Revolution article, and this was one of them?

Here's his theory:

State Police as Social Resources Theory

Kam C. Wong1

14775 – 10494

5/25/08

Paper presented at

Brown Bag Forum

April 25, 2008

Division of Criminal Justice

University of Cincinnati

Not to be cited without permission

All rights reserved

ABSTRACT

Introduced in the 1970s (in the United States), community policing is a philosophy and strategy to involve and engage the public to fight crime and improve quality of life in their own community.

A cursory review of literature reveals that in spite of its success there is no scientific – logical, predictable, refutable - theory explaining and explicating, predicting and refuting CP practices. This is a first attempt to do so.

The theory being proposed: “State police as a social resource theory” (SRT) is a people’s theory of policing. It seeks to answer four questions that perplex policing scholars and befuddle police professionals: What is police in a democratic society? What are their role and functions? What is the relationship of police and people? Why do people call the police?

As a people’s theory policing, SRT looks at the nature of crime and functions of the police from the people, not state, perspective View in this light, crime are problems (unmet expectations) to individuals. Police is a kind of emergency social resource made available to the people to augment their resource inadequacies.

The value of criminal records for history is not so much that they uncover about a particular crime as what they reveal about otherwise invisible or opaque realms of human experience.

Muir & Ruggiero (1994)2

The American city dweller’s repertoire of methods for handling problem including one known as “calling the cops.”

Egon Bittner (1970)3

If the people were allowed to manage their affairs for themselves. They could do that with half of the number of policeman who were now employed.

Halley Steward, MP (1888)4

I

Introduction

Introduced in the 1970s (in the United States), community policing (CP) is a philosophy and strategy to involve and engage the public to fight crime and improve quality of life in their own community. The ultimate purpose of CP is to provide for better – responsive and responsible, efficient and effective – police services. CP takes many forms, e.g., team policing, and is realized in different ways, e.g., problem oriented policing (POP).

CP, as a democratic practice, seeks to actualize Sir Robert Peel’s principles of “police are the people, people are the police.” CP requires the police to work together with the community in identifying, prioritizing and dealing with crime, safety and order issues.

A cursory review of literature reveals that in spite of its success there is no scientific – logical, predictable, refutable - theory explaining and explicating, predicting and refuting CP practices. This is a first attempt to do so.

The theory being proposed: “State police as a social resource theory” (SRT) is a people’s theory of policing. It seeks to answer four questions that perplex policing scholars and befuddle police professionals: What is police in a democratic society? What are their role and functions? What is the relationship of police and people? Why do people call the police?

As a people’s theory policing, SRT looks at the nature of crime and functions of the police from the people, not state, perspective View in this light, crime are problems (unmet expectations) to individuals. Police is a kind of emergency social resource made available to the people to augment their resource inadequacies.

This article is organized in the following manner. After this brief “Introduction” (Section I), there will be a short discussion of “What is community policing (CP)?” (Section II) to contextualize the study. This will be followed by an overview of “State Police as Social Resources Theory: A Statement” which details the major propositions and defines the basic concepts of the theory. Section III discusses the “Theoretical Foundation and Support” for the theory. Section V is “A Summary” outline of the following theoretical issues: What kind of theory is SRT?” “Is SRT a good (enough) theory?” “Is SRT a scientific theory?” “Is SRT a good theory?” What are the contributions of SRT? What are the problems and issues with SRT? What needs to be done to perfect the theory? Section V is a “Conclusion” which recaps why SRT is a sound policing theory and strategy.

II

What is community policing (CP)?

In the United States, CP resulted from an overall failure of policing.5 Traditional policing reacts to incidences of crime and disorder.6 Professional policing is not responsive to the people.7 Legalistic policing is too impersonal.8 Technocratic policing isolates the police from the people. Para-militaristic policing is too confrontational. 9 Random patrol does not (seems to) deter crime.10 Incidence driven policing does not solve problems. Speedy response has little success in catching criminals.11 Detectives rarely solve (cold) cases (without ID). 12 In the end, people were frustrated and dissatisfied with traditional – professional policing. They wanted changes.

At this juncture, researchers were able to show that taken care of “broken windows” thaws crime,13 well kept neighborhood improves quality of life14 and foot patrol reduces fear of crime.15 Police started to change their policing strategy.16 Instead of reacting to crime, they started to look at crime as a problem to be dealt with.17

A lingering question remains. What is CP?

The seventh of Sir Robert Peel's nine Principles of Policing provides a solid foundation for CP:

To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen, in the interest of community welfare and existence.

There are two mainstream approaches18 to defining CP, i.e., as a philosophy or as a strategy. The philosophical approach described CP as:

“a new philosophy, based on the concept that police officers and private citizens working together in creative ways can help solve contemporary community problems related to crimes, fear of crime, social and physical disorder, and neighborhood decade.”19

Alternatively, Bob Trojanowicz described CP as:

“a philosophy of full-service, personalized policing where the same officer patrols and works in the same area on a permanent basis, from a decentralized place, working in a proactive partnership with citizens to identify and solve problems. “20

In South Africa the “main objective of CP is to establish and maintain an active partnership between the police and the public through which crime, its causes and other safety-related issues can jointly be determined and appropriate solutions designed and implemented".21

Approach this way, CP is democratic governance in action, i.e., providing or promoting public participation in policing, from input of ideas22 to engage with operations to monitor on outcome.

As a strategy, CP has variously been associated with police public relations, team policing, foot-patrol and crime prevention. Whatever the strategy, it is directed at:

"the enhancement of human relations, a community-sensitive and user-friendly police service, consultation on the needs of communities, respect for human rights, cultural sensitivity, continuous positive contact with community members, discretion on the part of police officers when they enforce the law, and the establishment of mechanisms to enhance the accountability and transparency of the police".23

III

Theory of State Police as Social Resources: A Statement

Proposition#1: People confront problems routinely and some of them are called crime.

Proposition#3: People call the police because they do not have the necessary resources to deal with their problems, crime and non-crime.

Proposition#4: Police power is a kind of emergency (social) resources made available to the people to solve their problems. 24

Proposition#5: The more resources at the disposal of the people the less problem the people will be confronted with.

Proposition#6: The more resources at the disposal of the people the less they have to call on the police when problem (crime) happened.

Proposition#7: The more (appropriate) resources at the disposal of the police the more effective they are in solving people’s problem.

Definitions:

“Police” is defined as: “Police is a depository and coordinator of social resources. Police is also an all purpose emergency problem solver who is authorized to use coercive resources to solve problem in a domestic situation and during peaceful time.”

“Problem” is defined as: “An unrealized expectation of wants or needs due to resource deprivation.”

“Resource”25 is defined as “Things of all kinds, including to power, time, materials, skills, culture, ideas, knowledge, which can be used to satisfy ones expectations of want and needs.”26

IV

Theoretical Foundation and Support

A Radical Theoretical framework

“State Police as a Social Resource Theory” (SRT) looks at police as a social resource for solving people’s problems (including crime) through empowerment and self-help.

SRT starts with a basic observation which informs this theory throughout, i.e., in a democratic state, common people’s experience with crime and perception of the role of the police controls and dictates people’s action, e.g., whether, when and how much to call and tell the police.27

From the perspective of the state, crime is a legal violation. From the perspective of the people, crime is a set of life experience, and a multi-faceted personal happenstance, aspects of which are called problem.

From the perspective of the state, police power is a political resource to secure control, maintain order28 and command obedience.29 Under this rubric, police power is defined coercively, structured legally, organized bureaucratically and imposed unilaterally.

From the people’s perspective, police power is a social resource made available by the state and draw upon by the citizens to handle personal problems of an emergency nature or crisis kind. More significantly, in the eyes of the people, police power should not be structured by law or organized bureaucratically. 30 Police as a resource should be freely available to the people on demand and negotiated to fit the personal expectations and situational needs of the time.

The theory of state (police) powers as social resources argues that the definition and availability of police power as a political resource happens at a structural-macro level, e.g., legislative process and political debate,31 and the initiation, distribution, disposition of police power as social resource happens at the personal-situational-micro level, e.g., reporting crime and preferring charges.32

Policing from the people’s perspective

Looking at police role and functions from the public’s perspective can be justified on a number of grounds:

First, SRT calls for looking at life course problems from the people’s perspective, as a matter of birth right and natural maturity. In Kant’s words:

“Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another.” 33

This means empowering the people and supplying them with the necessary resources, on demand and as required.

Second, SRT corrects the lopsided relationship between police and the people by returning the people to the center stage, and in control,34 or communalization,35 socialization36 or personalization37 of crime.

Third, SRT marks a shift of focus from a state centered community (oriented) policing to a people’s oriented policing.38 While COP calls for the police to listen to and serve the needs of the community as a mean to an end, e.g., leveraging community resources to fight crime, SRT asks the police to be responsible and accountable to the people as an end.

Fourth, SRT gives “social” meaning and lends “emotional” content to otherwise sterile people - police activities, which is what policing is all about, i.e., dealing with human problems and personal difficulties of one form or another.39 In so doing it socialize and humanize the police – people interface, making police business a truly peoples’ business.40

Fifth, SRT liberates the police from the sterile confine of the law and stifling restrains of the bureaucracy. It gets away from one size fits all “Mcdonaldization” of police (burger, cheese burger, double cheeseburger is still a burger) strategy and practices.

Sixth, SRT recognizes police work should be as diverse and complex as people’s problem, i.e., policing changes with time, place, people, context, circumstances and situations.

Seventh, and most importantly, SRT allows the people to be heard, speaking from the heart than from the brain, experientially than cognitively. For all too long, the public is an object of policing when in fact they are, and should be, the subject of policing. Instead of being policed, they should be engaged in problem solving.

The legal anthropologist has contributed much, through the study of “trouble cases,” to our understanding of how indigenous people of other cultures settle dispute and deal with problems. Such research informs that the problems of everyday life look and feel very differently from the inside than from outside.41 The lesson to be drawn from such studies is that legal classifications of a personal encounter, e.g., murder or rape, do not usually capture the true nature and felt impact of such an encounter, as experienced by the person involved. Problems as experiences are anchored within a constellation of personal relationships, shaped by a multiplicity of social factors, circumscribed by intersecting norms (moral, custom, ethics) and moved along by situational dynamics and personal interactions.42 Simply, as experience, no crimes are alike.

The theory as proposed – people solving own problem with state resource - is consistent with the civil society movement,43 privatization of police trend,44 and Alternative Dispute Resolution initiative.45 The theory, if ever fully realized, allows the people to be the master of their own affair. Ultimately, all people have the right to define, dictate and control the extent and manner of the state’s involvement in their life and experiences.

Policing as empowerment

When the state police power is used to enforce the law, e.g., arrest and prosecution, or invoked by the people to deal with a problem, e.g., report of crime or call for assistance, it automatically transforms the nature and affects the handling of the “situation”46 on hand.

When the people call the police, it gives the state the opportunity to intervene and transform a purely private/personal matter to a solely public/ legal one. This amounts to the bureaucratization/ legalization/ professionalization of a private or personal problem. The bureaucratization/legalization/ professionalization of a problem transforms/converts a personal problem into one that is recognizable by the police and actionable in court.47

For example, a case will be prosecuted if all the elements of a crime can be proven in a court of law beyond a reasonable double: (1) a conduct (actus reus) (2) a criminal intent (mens rea), (3) a harm, (4) a causation, (5) a law against it. In being captured by law, a personal problem loss much of its attributes and meaning derived from the social milieu, communal setting, interpersonal relationship, historical context and situational dynamics of which it is an integral part, or what the “situation” is all about.

Before the police intervene, a personal dispute between two office lovers ending in a street fight at night registers a rupture of a personal relationship, derailment of a marriage plan, disruption of office work, damaging of career prospects, not to mention hurt ego, tested confidence, loss of face. When the police is called, the street fight becomes a “public nuisance’ and the lovers turned into “complainant” and “defendant.”

In the process of transformation/conversion, the personal problem loses much of its original meaning and natural feeling to the actors directly involved and others who are variously afflicted, e.g., the sons, daughters and neighbors of a “criminal.” More significantly, what matters most to the actors involved, i.e., emotion, and people affected, e.g., relationship, are of least concern to the state.

For example, criminal law does not recognize “motive” as a justification or excuse for illegal action. Legally speaking, intentional killing of one depraved person (e.g., Hitler) to save a million innocent people (e.g., Jews) is as guilty as killing a million innocent people (e.g., Jews) to satisfy ones deprave mind (e.g., Hitler). The murder is still prosecuted and punished in accordance with the law. Likewise killing a person to relief his pain is no less killing than the cold blooded murder at will and randomly. 48 This is because under criminal law, intent to harm and not motive to kill is considered important. However, communal custom and personal morality has always been concerned with motivation, why a person kill is as important, if not more important, than the fact that someone intentionally killed.49 This is most clearly illustrated by Kobben’s observation of conflict between local custom and government law:

In the village of Ajumakonde a man and a woman are caught in flagrante delictor. A few of the woman’s brothers want to beat her and the man, but the man fight back. In the heat of the flight he is bitten by one of his assailants. The man goes to Mungo to ledge a complaint with the police; before going into the office, he rolls about in the mud to make himself look really pitiable. The police go to Ajunmakonde, where they arrest two men (“not even the one who did the beating”) …The event is the talk of the whole district. People are indignation at the man’s action but equally at the police. “The one who broke the rules is put in the right and the others in the wrong. The police are stupid, they should ask what was the reason for the fight. It is just like a snake; when it is lying curling up and a person passes, it won’t do anything. Only if a person treads on the snake will it bite. That is what we do; we don’t justice strike a man; we only strike him when there is a reason.50

Another example, criminal law assumes that people are rational, a fact that is not borne out by experience or supported by empirical evidence. Criminal law build upon the foundation of utilitarianism,51 denies emotions of everyday life. Thus killing emotionally is no less guilty as one who intentionally kills, unless it can be said that the emotions overwhelms the individual rational faculty, justifying diminished capacity claims. Likewise, jurors were instructed not to use their emotion in deliberation lest it allows personal sympathy to influence the outcome of the case.52 In both cases, basic constitution (emption) and core value (of a person is denied in favor of rational administration of the law.53

The process and effect of transformation of a private affair into a public matter on the precipitating event, consequential matters and associated people involved is best described by Manning:

As the message moves the system, it loses the implicit, connotative meanings associated with the polysemic nature of what was reported to have happened and becomes more denotative, represented in police classification, and is treated by the organization more as something to sort out and deal with and less as a reflection of a complex, emotional, sensate event. I shall refer to this as bureaucratization of social and personal problems.54

Manning’s observation was elaborated upon in concrete details by Canadian criminologist Jorgensen who examined 16 hours of police calls – 820 telephone conversion, 210 dispatches and 53 request reports – from a large suburban police station in Central Canada. In concluding, Jorgensen clearly observed legal and administrative considerations come before the citizen’s concern:

“We have seen that C.O. (communication officers) do not mechanically act on caller requests. Conversations are difficult and require the application of interpretations. Citizen explanations and concerns are not necessarily police consideration and concerns…All trouble announced to the police may potentially involve “chargeable” matters, or prove otherwise…The C.O. is concerned, our findings suggest, more with managing and negotiating caller requests than, perhaps with satisfying caller demands. By placing calls under legal definitions, C.O.s can achieve and maintain the most administrative control.”55 (Underline supplied).

Legalization of a problem also shifted the ownership and arena of dealing with the problem from the private to pubic, informal to formal, personal to official. For example, once a family problem (dispute) is acted upon by the police as a legal violation (assault) the parties involved (husband and wife) cannot (re)claim ownership of the problem (which is theirs in the first place and affects them most afterward), until such time the police has determined it is no longer in the state’s interest to proceed with the case.

Stills, there are formal and informal ways the parties can influence the legal process and outcome. Battered wives have refused to testify against abusive husbands, or turn adverse witnesses, under penalty of law, i.e., contempt of court. The police and prosecutor also have long respected the rights of the victims not to prosecute.

Otherwise, the law allows for private prosecution if the police or state refuses to move forward. 56 More recently, the victim’s right movement successfully reforms the law to allow the victims to participate in the sentencing of the offenders57 and the re-integration shame theorists have made it possible for the victims to play a key role in having some control over the disposition of cases. All these argue for a prominent role and active involvement of the people (victim, defendant) in the management of their own business and problems.

The state police power as social resource addresses this observed state-police dominance of private and personal matter by empowering the public to deal with their own problems.

The theory also serves to redefine the role of and relationship between the police and the people. Under this theory the police are an agent of the people and police power is a resource for the people to use. This arrangement empowers the people as it gives the people much more control over their own affairs. In so doing, the public will be actualizing one of the central tenants of democratic policing, i.e., people policing themselves. For example, the state can make a law clearly stating the kinds of cases or circumstances under which the citizen has a right to expect police service and conditions upon which the police powers can be used. Such law should spell out the right of the public to determine whether to warn, summon, arrest or prosecute an individual causing a problem for the complainant. The public may also be allowed to use the range of acceptable remedies and punishment deemed acceptable to the public in resolving a “troubled case” under the supervision of the police.

Policing as self-help

As structured, the theory gives credence to CP in that it openly acknowledges in theoretical terms and explicates in concrete detail why and how the public should play a key role in the deployment and disposition of police power as a social resource in search of a solution to their own problems. To that extent this is a theory about “self-help,”58 “private ordering” and “personalized justice.”59

This theoretical approach – looking at police services from public’s perspective and as personal/community problems - is anticipated by Cumming, Cumming and Edell, Goldstein, and Bittner, though all three of them did not carry their analysis far enough in addressing the central proposition of this theory – people should be empowered60 to solve their own problems.

Cumming and her colleagues properly discovered the “support” function of the police but fail to discuss its theoretical import and operational impact in terms of people’s policing.61

Goldstein properly identified the “community problem solving” functions of the police but stopped short of recognizing the people having an inherent right as individual citizens to demand police resource to solving their own problems. 62

Bittner properly demonstrated that the police bring with them the “capacity and authority” of using coercive force to solve situational problems of all kinds without also realizing that in actuality police possesses a range of other resources - diverse capacities and multitude authorities, the most sought after one is legitimacy - which made them valuable to the people in their problem solving ventures.

All these scholars contributed significantly to my thinking about people-problem oriented policing (PPOP) but none of them envisions a re-conceptualization of the roles (problem oriented) and relationship (people’s oriented) of the police to the people.

Hereunder is my reflection on the contribution of Cumming, etal., Goldstein and Bittner to my theoretical thinking.

Cumming, Cumming and Edell on police service role

Cummings and her colleagues were the first to discover the dual roles performed by the police, i.e., as a control vs. supportive agent. “Finally, besides latent support, the policeman often gives direct help to people in certain kinds of trouble.” After analyzing 801 calls over 82 hours, Comming and her colleagues found that over 50 percents of the police calls sought help of one sort or another. The research team concluded that instead of enforcing law or fighting crime the police were asked by the people to help solve their problems, i.e., in acting as philosopher, guide and friend to people in need. This research is important because it breaks with traditional conception of police (in 1960s, the height of professional policing) in openly recognizing the social role and service nature of police work.

For our purpose, what social service the police rendered is less important as the fact that the police are not solely political controller, law enforcer and crime fighter. They help people to solve their problems of all kinds. Like so many other researches to follow, the research failed to draw upon the empirical findings to articulate a police theory calling for a renew understanding of police role, focusing on problem solving and resource distribution. This task is left to Goldstein.

Goldstein on police non-legal functions

In a seminal article Goldstein observed and lamented that there is a “tendency in policing to become preoccupied with means over ends.”63 The example he used was a bus speeding by bus stops full of people waiting without stopping, just to be on time. By that Goldstein observed that traditionally police agencies in America have structured their activities around law enforcement and crime control when they should be orientating themselves to the “substance” of policing, i.e., solving crime and related problems of the community. In so doing, he was one of the first to re-orient police functions from reactive crime fighting to pro-active problem solving in the community. He called for a shift in police strategy and activities to that of “problem oriented policing” (POP) which has since then become the organizing principle of police reform in the 1980s. “The police must give more substance to community policing by getting more involved in analyzing and responding to specific problems citizens bring to their attention.”

This invitation for the police to shift its role and function from dealing with crimes to solving community problems, challenges the police to look at the nature (complexity of causes), extent (diversity of manifestation) and remedy (variety of alternatives) to community problems beyond the narrow confine of the tradition role of police as law enforcer and crime fighter.

“This calls for a much heavier investment by the police in understanding the varied pieces of their business, just as the medical field invests in understanding different disease. It means that police, more than anyone else, should have a detailed understanding of such varied problems as homicide involving teenage victims, drive-by shootings, and carjackings…Analyzing each of these quite different problems in depth leads to the realization that what work for one will not work the other, that each may require a different combination of different response."64

In so doing, the police no longer fight crime and enforce law but engage in community problem solving.

My theory while agreeing with Goldstein’s POP approach differs from his in a number of important ways.

First, Goldstein’s POP is in the main a strategy to solve “community” and not “personal” problem. Goldstein argued that the police should not be driven by law, focused on crime and reacting to individual incidents. Instead police work should have a larger reference and more pragmatic focus in dealing with the root causes of crime. Individual calls for service is used to understand the nature, extent and cause of a larger community problem, e.g., repeated calls about robberies in a neighborhood tells the police that this is a criminal “hot spot.”

Theoretically, the focus on community and not personal problem is an important distinction for three reasons. First, Goldstein is less concerned about dealing with individual level problems as he is pre-occupied with eradicating community and or society level problems. More bluntly, Goldstein looks at individual problems reported to the police as indicators of larger problems in the community, not a problem worth attending to unto itself. Ultimately, a conceptual qua theoretical question presents itself, i.e., how did Goldstein define the term “problem” in POP? In this the corpus of Goldstein’s work is of no help. Goldstein did not define the term, and allow the practice speaks for itself. The failure to define “problem” belies larger philosophical, i.e., role of police in democratic society, and practical concerns, i.e., limits of police action.

Philosophically, why should police attend to problems of crime in a community, and not crime as problems to individuals? Who is the police serving? Practically, should the police be dealing with crime and disorder problems at their roots, e.g., shutting down bars near schools, or should the police be dealing with the various problems associated with a “crime”, e.g., rape related emotion-psychological trauma?

I argue in my theory that both are important, but from the perspective of the people (victims) it is the later that is more important. That is why people called the police in the first instance, i.e., to seek help to deal with crime precipitated and related problems.

Second, Goldstein’s theory is a “police” not a “people’s theory. Goldstein’s main contribution is in having the police looking at the larger picture beyond the immediate, to discover problems lurking behind every crime and disorder in the community. My theory is a pure “people” theory of policing. It asks the police to look at crime, disorder and other problems from the perspective of the people. In so doing, what is a problem to the people (as individuals) is considered ipso facto a problem for the police. There is an interesting question whether the police can ever disagree with the people over the existing, classification and assessment of a problem. They can. However, under the theory, the police as an agent cannot override the people’s (as a principle) assessment of a situation, however irrational or objectionable. The police of course can offer his advice as an expert consultant as to how best to deal with a personal problem. This necessary gives the police the right to dissuade the citizen from using the police for what to the police is a non-problem, problem. Lastly, the police can certainly limit the availability of resources based on commonly agreed upon objective criteria written into law and policy.

Third, Goldstein expects the police to solve community problem with the help of the community. My theory wants the people to solve their own problem with or without the help the police. More importantly, police resource is only one of the many resources potentially available.

Fourth, Goldstein wants the police to have more expansive police power to solve the crime problems, e.g., nuisance abatement law. My theory wants to empower the citizens themselves (e.g., learn how to deal with disputes) or with the help of others (e.g., police, social worker, friends, relatives) to solve their own problems. While I do not object to police having more power to serve the people, such powers should only be activated and used with the people’s consent and at their direction and control. The ultimate objective is to transfer as much resources to the people as possible, as a global strategy. In this, it is fair to say that the police is working themselves out of a job.

Fifth under Goldstein’s formulation, police problem solving will lead to more police penetration into communal lives. Under my theory the police will be playing a lesser and lesser role in the community with the people getting better and better in taking care of their own business. Goldstein’s theory allows the police to enter the people’s life at will in search of a solution. My theory empowers the people to control the police once he is called to serve. In sum, Goldstein wants to enlarge the role of the state, I want to create more civil society space.

Table I:Goldstein POP vs. Wong’s SRT

Goldstein

Wong

Definition of problem

Police in consultation with the public

People identifying their own personal or community problem

Ownership of problem

Police

People

Solution to problem

Police provide solution to problem

People draw upon the police as a resource to solve personal problems

Mean to solve problem

More police resources

Varieties of community/ personal resources

Role of police

State control agent

People’s problem solving – resource agent

Role of citizen

Community participation (policy consultation) and assistance (eyes and ears)

Citizen consult, engage, or direct police to solve problem.

Bittner on police as coercive resource

In an equally important and provocative article Bittner convincingly argued that “the role of the police is to address all sorts of human problems when insofar as their solutions do or may possibly require the use of force at the point of their occurrence.”65 More specifically, police: “is best understood as a mechanism for the distribution of non-negotiable coercive force employed in accordance with the dictates of an intuitive grasp of situational exigencies.”66

Bittner came to this definition of American police role after observing how police work in the field in a Rocky Mountain State, U.S.A.. He observed that the police is the only social institution empowered to use legitimate force to settle problems in our society in peace-time. For example, he gave this illustration of why police are called

“In a tenement, patrolmen were met by a public health nurse who took them through an abysmally deteriorated apartment inhabited by four young children in the care of an elderly woman. The babysitter resisted the nurse’s earlier attempts to remove the children. The patrolmen packed the children in the squad car and took them to Juvenile Hall, over the continuing protests of the elderly woman.”67

But what about the majority of situations when the police are called but not expected to use force, e.g., police help in finding lost children? Does this not detract from Bittner’s definition? Bittner argued not. While it is true that in most cases when police are called, force is not needed and never will be used. However, that does not mean that force might not be necessary, as a last resort. In essence, to Bittner it is not the actuality or even probability of using force that define the role of police, it is the possibility (no matter how slim) and potentiality of use of force (not matter how contingent) which justifies the definition of police role.

More pertinent for our analysis, Bittner postulated that everyone expects the police to use force to solve problem when they call the police:

“There is no doubt that this feature of police work is uppermost in the minds of people who solicit police aid or direct the attention to problems, that persons against whom the police proceed against have this feature in mind and conduct themselves accordingly, and that every conceivable police intervention projects the message that force may be, and may have to be, used to achieve a desired objective.” 68

Bittner and I agree on one thing, people call police as a resource to solve their problems. However, I do not agree with Bittner that all or even a majority people call the police because of the police’s “capacity and authority” to use coercive force. My disagreement with Bittner is based on the following arguments:

The public call the police for a variety of reasons, not all of them require the use of force. In fact most the calls for service from the public defy the use of force for a satisfactory resolution. For example, when the police is called to help locate a lost relative, to unlock a vehicle, or put out a fire, the public do not expect the police to use force because force is not contemplated and of little use. Take the case of a fire in a rural area with no fire department nearby. As I have made clear, people call police to put out a fire because they lack the resource to do it themselves – fire fighter equipment (technology resource), fire fighter skill (knowledge resource), fire fighter personnel (people resource). While the “capacity and authority” to use force is certainly one kind or resources needed to remove anyone who obstruct and impede with the fire fighting, this is not the only or most important kind of resources sought by the public when he/she called 911. Coercive force, if ever to be used is such situations, is quite remote and very contingent. The people who call the police certainly do not anticipate such far-fetched theoretical possibility. Bittner is stretching his logic in order to make a point.

According to my theory, people call the police to solve their personal problems because they do not have the personal or community resources to deal with the problem on hand. That is to say that if people have the necessary resources to solve the problem on hand they will not call the police. Since, personal or community resources to deal with a given problem, e.g., fighting a small fire, is not evenly distributed, this means that some will be calling the police for help while others will not. For the people who opt to take care of the fire problem themselves, they will be using whatever resources available to them to do so, e.g., calling their relatives to help. This certainly does not include the use or potential use of force. If the same problem could be solved by the citizens without force, it is far fetch to claim that people who call the police on the same kind of problem are calling the police because the police has a “capacity and authority” to use force as a “contingency,” however remote. The fact of the matter is from the people’s perspective most problems they have to deal with defy forceful and coercive intervention, e.g., when people are depressed and want to commit suicide. In fact, for most of the time and with nearly every matter the police is called upon to deal with by the people, forceful invention is inappropriate if not even counter-productive.

In some cases, the people call police precisely because they do not want force to be used. For example, people may be calling police as an arbitrator in a family dispute. An irate wife may call the police to affirm that her husband had a lady in the car when he crashed in the early morning. A frustrated father may call the police to tell his daughter, who insisted on going out to the local bars, how dangerous it could be to go out at night to such a rowdy place. The irate wife, is drawing upon the police’s information power to show the husband that she has a right to be upset. The frustrated father, on drawing upon the police’s expert power, wanted the daughter to learn a lesson before making up her mind in going out. In either case, the parties do not want force to be used.

According to my theory, whether a citizen is calling on the police’s “capacity and authority” to use force certainly depends on whether the citizen have the “capacity and authority” to use force relative to the police, thereby making the police’s “capacity and authority” superfluous in many cases. In those cases where the citizens have the “capacity and authority” to use force, e.g., arresting and turning a thief over to the police, they have no need to invoke the police for its “capacity and authority” to use force but only to process the person through the next stage of the criminal justice system. In such cases, the public again have no intention of invoking the police’s coercive power.

Most people call the police because the police’s other more important and unique “capacity and authority,” e.g., the police is a legitimate state authority. In this regard, people are used to seeing police as a moral authority representing the state, or what is called in my theory a “legitimacy resource.” As such, people follow the police instruction voluntarily and instinctively, and expect others’ to do the sane. In this way, the police will be listened to, not because he/she has the “capacity or authority” to use force but as the British had it, they are the representative agent of the people (some said state) and thus carry with them the moral authority of the people and state.69 The importance of legitimacy and moral authority in securing compliance and helping people to resolve problems within relevant in-groups is well established. In imperial China, the instruction of the father (delegated police authority) is instantly obeyed, less so because he can use force to exact compliance and more so as a result of his elevated social status and established moral authority. Within the Church, the admonition of the Pope is never challenged because he possesses ultimate religious stature and moral authority. In a corporation, the security chief’s order is never questioned, not because he can use physical force to enforce his will but because he is empowered by the company to compel performance from the employee. Within the scientific community, the lead scientist has the final say over a scientific project because he has expert authority. The whole point being, different people in different walks of life can draw upon different capacity and authority to compel people to act. Likewise, police possess different capacity and authority to move along people as expected. Force is only one of the many resources used by the police to put things in order.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, Bittner’s formulation assume that all people in all culture at all time on all matter look at police (coercive) role the same. More pertinently, all people have the same expectation of the police role and relations. This presupposition runs counter to the first lesson learnt about studying policing and society. How the people of a given society in a certain era conceive of the police and their relationship with society must of necessity depends on the cultural understanding of that society about the role, functions and relationship of the police with the public in point of time. In pre-history time, the tribes police their members with high priests who were readily obeyed without the threat or use of force. In modern time, private security of a company is able to police without resort to force in that company because their authority is accepted by the employee to be legitimate.

Individualized self-help

PPOP fashioning individual self-help promotes individual justice over and above legal or universal justice. Instead of asking whether there is a crime? The question is asked which law can be used to solve the problem on confronted by the people? Applying “individual justice” to criminal case while not the norm within the Anglo-American criminal justice system, is not entirely unheard of. The juvenile justice system is based on individual justice approach where the juvenile is not being treated as a criminal but as a person with a problem of adjustment in need of help. “The principle of individualized justice is more inclusive than the principle of the offense. It contains many more criteria in its framework of relevance…The principle of individualized justice suggests that disposition is to be guided by a full understanding of the client’s personal and social character and by his “individual needs.”70

Crime problem as a function of resource deprivation

As intimated above, when people call the police, they do so because they have “unmet expectations,” or experienced “resource deficit”. Expectations can be met by deploying proper and adequate resources. For example, a simple theft is a problem because it breaches a number of expectations: victim does not expect to be violated; victim does not expect to loss money; victim does not expect to have to walk to work, etc.

The victim might not need to call the police if he has resources to meet those expectations, e.g., if victim is rich he might be protected by security guards and if he has a car he might not need to walk. The most appropriate way to deal with crime as a personal or social problem is, First, define what kind of problem(s), if at all, that is confronted by the people; Second, afford the people the necessary resources to prevent or resolve such problems.

This is exactly what imperial Emperors did; they avoid crime through enrichment (material resource) and education (mental resource) of the people.

V

SRT: A Summary

“There is nothing quite as practical as a good theory.”

Kurt Lewin (1952)71

Introduction

This section briefly summarizes the construction, contributions and issues with the SRT. 72 It starts with a brief discussion of “What is a theory?” before assessing the nature, constitution, scientificness and merit of SRT. The essay is organized to address the following issues, one by one:

I: “What is a theory?

II. “What kind of theory is SRT?”

III. “Is SRT a good (enough) theory?”

IV. “Is SRT a scientific theory?”V. “Is SRT a good theory?”

VI. What are the contributions of SRT?

VII. What are the problems and issues with SRT?

VIII. What needs to be done to perfect the theory?

I. What is a theory?

A theory is a generalization of experiences. It categorizes and systematizes a large number of observations to allow us to see the world in a certain orderly73 and meaningful way. In this regard, it is a model or framework for understanding74 - describing, explaining,75 and predicting - of phenomena.

Scientific theories are universal statements. Like all linguistic representations they are systems of signs or symbols. Theories are nets cast to catch what we call ‘the world’; to rationalize, to explain and to master it. We endeavour to make the mesh even finer and finer.76

According to Stephen Hawking in A Brief History of Time,

"a theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model which contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations.”77

Doty and Glick observed that there are three criteria in qualifying a theory: (i) identification of constructs; (ii) specification of relationships among these constructs; and (iii) able to be tested, i.e. falsifiable.78

II. What kind of theory is SRT?79

Usually, a theory can be prescriptive, descriptive - explanatory, predictive, or practical.

A prescriptive theory tells people what to do and how to do it in pursue of certain agenda or goals, or driven by some value assumptions. For example, as a democratic theory build upon communitarian foundation80 SRT requires us to look at police role and functions from the perspective of the people. It also tells the police to look to the people for instruction and supervision, as social service agents.

A descriptive – explanatory theory tells people how things work – when, where, how - at groud zero. The kind of research that typifies this theoretical approach is historical, anthropological, and case studies. It contributes to our understanding of the micro process of how people solve problems resulting from crimes, from how gather resource to how to when to seek out police resources. For example, SRT explains the process and factors why people do or do not call the police.

A predictive theory tells people what to expect in theoretical terms when certain conditions occur. For example SRT predicts that people who have many resources – economic, social, physical, intellectual - will not call the police (as often). It also predicts what kind of people will call police at what time, e.g., students will call police at examination time for computer help.

A causal theory tells people the relationship between two inter-related events one (independent) event giving rise to a subsequent (dependent) event. In SRT problem is a function of resource. For example, police lack of legitimate resource (legal authority) causes police to use illegal resources (coercion) in criminal investigation.

A practical theory helps us to do things better in process and outcome. For example, SRT helps police to work more efficiently and effectively by equipping themselves with the right kind of resources in anticipation of problems arising, or problem oriented resource deployment.

Table I: The Nature of STR

Nature of Theory

Articulation of STR

Prescriptive

SRT is prescriptive to the extent it is based on democratic ideas and communitarian ideal.81 It requires academics, police and public to look at crime and policing from the peoples’ perspective and experiences. The three prescriptive principles that inform SRT are:

People’s understanding of situation should be contextualized in history, culture, community, experiential and personal terms.

The people have a right to (not) call the police for help to solve their unique problems.

The police have a duty to help the people with their individual problems.

Descriptive – explanatory

SRT is descriptive – explanatory to the extent it tells us what people think about their life experiences, including what to do with problems.

Predictive

SRT is predictive to the extent that it predicts:

when problem arises, i.e., when there is an unmet expectation;82

when will the public call the police, i.e., when people do not have the resource at their disposal to solve the problem;83

when will the police draw complaints from the people, i.e., when there is a mismatch between public demand for resource (nature of problem) and police supply of resource (kinds of resources);

when will the police use coercive force to extract confession from people, i.e., when supply of police resource (time, investigation skills) is overwhelmed by public demand of resources (terrorism, serious crimes).

Causal

SRT is a causal theory to the extent is explains:

Resource deprivation causes (crime) problem with the public;84

Unresolved problems result in call for the police (resource).85

Practical

SRT is practical to the extent it helps to improve:

Theory: rethink POP can apply to individual and personal problems or PPOP;

Policy: empower the people – community to prevent – solve problem themselves;86

Practice: teach people how to identify, prioritize and solve their own problem;88

Practice: transfer resources to the people to prevent or solve problem, e.g., arm the public to deter crime;

Practice: teach police how to manage and distribute resources.89

III. Is SRT a good (enough) theory?

A good theory should satisfactorily address the following questions:

(1) What are the essential elements of a phenomenon, i.e., construct and variables?

In SRT the constructs are “democratic”, “people”, “police”, “ownership”, “control” “problem” and “resource”. All these constructs are necessary to answer the research questions in a democracy, who are the police? Why do people call the police?

(2) How do constructs relate to each other in logical and meaningful ways?

The SRT addresses the following relationship issues: Who are the police? What do police do? Specifically, what is or should be the role of police in society? What is or should be the relationship between people and the police? Specifically, who is in control in solving social, communal and personal problems? What is a problem? Specifically, what is the relationship between resource and problem? How are personal or communal problems solved? Specifically, why do people call the police?

(3) What are the basic assumptions underscoring a set of human behavior?

The SRT is a “democratic” theory with communitarian overtone. It is also a “naturalistic” theory. To the extent that “democratic” theory derives from “naturalistic” assumptions, i.e., people have a right as well as tendency to take care of their own business, there is substantial overlap if not even convergence between the two assumptions.

(4) What is the boundary of the theory? What are the limiting conditions?

SRT is a democratic theory. It answers questions about social and not political role of police. It addresses issues of relationship between police and the people. It does not address relationship issues between police and political authority. It does not address relationship issues between political authority vs. police vs. people. It does not address relationship issues between people vs. police vs. people. It does not addresses police roles and relationship with the people during war time or in emergencies.

IV. Is SRT a scientific theory?

What are the necessary and sufficient conditions of a scientific theory?

A competent scientific theory should be:

Logical with propositions;

Predictable of events;

Refutable by empirical evidence.

Table II: Is SRT a theory so called?

Necessary Conditions

Assessment of SRT

Logical

GTO propositions are all logically stated and inter-related:

(1) The stated (inverse) relationship between resource and problem (expectation) is logical.90

(2) The stated (positive) relationship between problem (crime) and call to police (resource) is logical.91

(3) The stated relationship between police (resource) and crime (problem) is contingent on (mis)match between kinds of police (resource) and types of crime (problem).92

Resource predicts problem, i.e., the more resource the less, lesser or easier the problem.

Resource predicts call for police, i.e., the less the personal or communal resource, in quantity and kind, the more call to the police.

Police (resource) availability predicts public satisfaction with police, i.e., the better resourced and resourceful the police the more satisfied the public.

Refutable

All SRT propositions are refutable through empirical hypothesis testing:

Do rich vs. poor people have more crime, and crime related problems?

Can police solve white collar crime problem?

V. What is a good theory?

A good theory answer questions of what and why:

“We agree with scholars like Kaplan (1964) and Merton (1967) who assert that theory is the answer to queries of why. Theory is about the connections among phenomena, a story about why acts, events, structure and thoughts occur. Theory emphasizes the nature of causal relationships, identifying what comes first as well as the timing of such events.”93

In terms of structure a good theory should be general, universal, simple, direct explicit, and useful. Theory is general when it can be broadly applied to different cases, context, or situation, from a specific case under observation. Theory is universal when it is not contingent. Theory is simple when it is parsimonious and succinct. Theory is direct when it is not mediated or be conditioned on by any other events. Theory is explicit when it is clear on its face. Theory is useful when it helps us to understand and predict things.

Table III: How good is SRT?

Criteria

Assessment of SRT

General

SRT is a general theory of a middle range.94 As such it helps us to understand concrete idea in abstract form and particular action in a general way. Abstraction allows us to see things beyond the immediate and concrete, e.g., crime as problem and police power as resource. Generalization allows us to apply what we observe to other cases and situations, in time and space, e.g., resourceful people do not call police for help.

Universal

SRT is a universal theory subject to no exception and contingency, with time, place, and people. All people have problems.95 All problems result from resource deficits.96 All people call police for help as a resource in the last resort.97

Simple

SRT is a simple theory. It has very few general principles:

First, the principle of resource driven problem.

Second, the principle of people driven problem solution.

Third, the principle of police as a social resource.

Fourth, the principle of supply and demand of resource.

Direct

SRT is a simple theory. All postulated relationships are not mediated nor contingent. Thus:

Resourceful public will have little reason to call police.

Police must be as resourceful as the problem.

Explicit

SRT is explicit with its assumptions (democratic), definitions, relationships and testing process. Nothing is hidden from view.

Useful

SRT is useful to the theorists, policy makers, practitioners and public.

VI. What are the contributions of SRT?

SRT is useful for police scholar and practitioners. For the former, SRT makes a number of theoretical advances, challenging old paradigm and prospecting new ideas. For the later, it offers new ideas to improve police work, making it more democratic, efficient and effective.

First, SRT is seeking a paradigm shift in policing (from state policing, to people’s policing, from police as service provider to police as resource manager, from POP to PPOP) and conceptual change with police as professionals (in identity, values, role).98

Third, SRT is build upon general principle and abstract concepts which allow us to connect to, benefited from and enrich by other intellectual realms.

Fourth, SRT allows us to interrogate the old, e.g., questioning the definition and limitations of “problem” (Goldstein), or challenging the understanding of police as a coercive force (Bittner).

Fifth, SRT helps us to prospect the new. What is a crime to the people? How do crime look and feel like beyond the confine of the law or outside the bureaucracy of the police? How to make old police CSO (community service officers) to become new CRO (community resource officers)?

Sixth, SRT offers a theory which answers three of the most important questions posed about policing in modern society. What is (role and functions of) the police? Why do public call the police? What is the relationship between police and the people?

VII. What are some of the problems and issues with SRT?

There are a number of issues that still need to be worked out:

If it is up to the individual or community to solve a problem, what is the role of the police with respect to a problem within its mandate, e.g., serious crime (not social crime)?

If it is up to the individual or community to solve a problem, what if the individual or community is willing but not able, or able but not willing to take care of the problem? What is the role of the community in relationship to the individual?

If it is up to the community to solve a problem, what if there are different values and interests within the community and they do not agree? How can such a problem be solved?

We need to develop typologies and functions of various resources, available at individual, community society and police level.

We need to investigate how different kinds of people (SES, ethnic, sex, age, culture) conceive and solve different problems.

We need to investigate how different people use different kinds of resources to solve different problems.

We need to investigate when and how different people (not) invoke police resource to solve different problems.

We need to investigate what kinds of resources police have access to for different kinds of problems.

We need to investigate how police react to different people demand for resources with different problems.

We need to investigate the convertability of coercive vs. incentive resources.

We need to investigate how to audit problems and resources at individual and community level;

We need to investigation how to match police resources with people’s problems.

We need to investigate the pattern and process of supply of resources vs. demand of problem resources in a community.

We need to investigate the relationship between supply of police resources vs. demand for resources by public.

We need to investigate the affect of supply vs. demand of resources on police conduct.

VI

Conclusion

The whole purpose of this long article is to introduce a new way of thinking about CP, making policing a people’s business and problem solving exercise. This new way of CP is encapsulated in a new theory of policing: “State Police as a State Resource Theory”.

SRT argues there are many reasons for engaging the people in policing themselves:

First, the people have the right to participate in their own governance. This is the idea and ideal of localism in the U.S.99 wherein all the powers of the central government come from the people. While federalism envisions a government from the top down, localism conceives of a government from the bottoms up. The legal status and relationship of local associations to central authority (state) is best captured by the U.S. Supreme Court in Avery v. Midland County 100 “Legislators enact many laws but do not attempt to reach those countless matters of local concern necessarily left wholly or partly to those who govern at the local level.” 101

Second, the people have the responsibility to fight crime. This is the notion of “communitarianism” in which is defined as “a mindset that says the whole community needs to take responsibility for itself. People need to actively participate, not just give their opinions … but instead give time, energy, and money.”102

Third, the people is in the best position to see that “people’s justice” is done, including making decisions on who to police, what to police and how to police. This is idea that the community notion of order and justice prevails over the rule of law.103

Fourth, the people were deemed to be more motivated, thus more vigilant, as an oppressed class to detect the counter-revolutionaries. This is idea that citizens of a state, as with employees of an organization, naturally seek responsibility if they are allowed to “own” a problem. “The average human being learns, under proper conditions, not only to accept but to seek responsibility.”104

Fifth, the people are in the best position, being more able, efficient, and effective in conducting the people’s business. This is the notion in that the public is the best source of intelligence for the police.105

Sixth, the police could not be everywhere the same time and in any one place all the time. This is especially the case in the sparsely populated area: e.g., border and rural areas It is unlikely that the police could be informed of illegal activities unless informed by the people.106

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I'm Niki Raapana, an independent researcher, co-founder of the Anti Communitarian League (ACL) with Nordica Friedrich, co- author of 2020: Our Common Destiny and co-author of the Anti Communitarian Manifesto.